E42: Architecture and the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy

54 Pages·2015·6.1 MB·English

by  Masha Ciampittiello

Florida State University Libraries
Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies
2012
E42: Architecture and the Visual Culture of
Fascist Italy
Masha Ciampittiello
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KEY WORDS
E42, Fascist Italy, Architecture
ABSTRACT
During the reign of Benito Mussolini (1925–1943), Italian architects reevaluated the purpose and
direction that modernism had taken in Italy, reorienting its previous focus on progressive, functional
architecture for the masses to include political propaganda for the state. From the Novecento, Rationalist,
and Futurist movements, the Regime chose designs that referred back to the stark monumentality of
Imperial Rome. This thesis argues that despite such constraints, Italian architects managed to find
innovative solutions and novel forms for representing Italian fascist rhetoric, producing a great deal of
individual variation within the architectural schools with which they were associated. Support for
Mussolini’s empire rested on popular mythologizing about the former Roman Empire and the belief
among Italians that the nation and its people were destined to revisit its glory. The propagandistic forms
designed by Italian architects employed by the state, as I argue, reflect this understanding as to the role of
classical heritage in the present and the place of individual innovation. The principal evidence for my
claim is the architecture and urban planning associated with the aborted Esposizione universale of 1942
(colloquially known as E42). The state used this suburban network of exhibition halls to display the
supremacy of contemporary Italian culture by making reference to classical Roman antiquity and to a
lesser extent the monumental forms of the Renaissance. My study investigates the ways in which the
architects of E42, in seeking to integrate the masses on a personal level with the political ideology of the
state, referenced Roman antiquity and the Renaissance, thereby visualizing connections between
Mussolini’s empire and the successful authoritative governments of Italy’s past. I provide a detailed
assessment of E42 and the various architectural schools competing for state sponsorship in order to
demonstrate that the production of Italian fascist visual culture was contingent to a greater degree than
has previously been acknowledged upon the notion that the state fostered some measure of individualism
in artistic design.
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE & DANCE

E42: ARCHITECTURE AND THE VISUAL CULTURE OF FASCIST ITALY

BY

MASHA CIAMPITTIELLO

A Thesis submitted to the

Department of Art History

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with

Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded:

SPRING 2012
The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Masha Ciampittiello

defended on 02 April 2012.

Dr. Adam Jolles

Thesis Director

______________________________

Dr. Lauren Weingarden

Committee Member

______________________________

Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus

Outside Committee Member

_______________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis director Dr. Adam Jolles. This thesis would
not be possible without his support, patience, and, above all, knowledge of the available sources for my
research endeavor. Dr. Jolles focused my ideas and direction for this project and I am grateful for his
confidence in this project.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of my honors committee Dr. Lauren
Weingarden and Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus for embarking on this great project with me and for providing me
with the ideas and suggestions with which to improve my work.
Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for their support during this project. Most of
all, I would like to thank my mother for providing me with the inspiration to investigate E42 and for
exposing me to Roman art at an early age.

Sincerely,

Masha Ciampittiello
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1
i. THE URBAN PLAN............................................................................................4
ii. THE BUILDINGS..............................................................................................7
iii. STATE OF THE LITERATURE…………………………………………….12

II. THE 1942 EXHIBITION AND THE EFFECTS OF POLITICS ON
ARCHITECTURE....................................................................................................16

III. E42 AND ITALIAN CULTURAL IDENTITY............................................................23

IV. CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................25

V. IMAGES........................................................................................................................28

VI. REFERENCES.............................................................................................................48
1
INTRODUCTION

Planning for the 1942 World Exhibition in Rome instigated the production of a new suburban
center EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma)1, or E42 (Esposizione 1942), which was designed to convey,
formally and symbolically, two thousand years of Italian national, regional, and individual identity. The
exhibition spaces contained within E42’s palaces (Palazzi) displayed state support for transforming
popular art and archaeology into a culture for the masses. By championing unilateral appreciation for the
accomplishments of the Italian people, the E42 complex strengthened the group mentality toward
national and regional unity among Italian citizens.2 Forming part of the ancient Roman port city of Ostia,
the complex had both permanent and temporary exhibition structures. E42 stood both as a provisional
exhibition for the 1942 display of Italian culture and as strategic propaganda machine fueled to expand
the city of Rome to the coast by means of its permanent structures. The regime perceived this expansion
as propaganda for connecting Mussolini’s empire to ancient Rome, the latter of which, at its apogee,
controlled most of Europe. Fascist Italy fostered a culture that looked toward an idealistic future at the
same time as it glorified the idealistic Roman past.3
In 1935, Giuseppe Bottai, then governor of Rome, proposed the idea of hosting a World Exhibition
event in Rome to display the strengths and achievements of Italian civilization. Mussolini quickly saw
this as an opportunity to strengthen popular support for the fascist cause and to display the vitality and
potential of the fascist political system to the world. Despite Mussolini’s annexation of Ethiopia in 1935-
36, the general policy of appeasement by the French and British governments of the mid-1930s, in an
effort to keep “peace for our time,”4 accommodated the demands of the fascist regime and other

1 “World Exhibition Rome”
2 Jan Nelis, "Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of "Romanità,” The Classical
World 100, no. 4 (2007), 394.
3 IBID.,393.
4 Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister of England) read the following statement after returning from the 1938
Munich Conference, in which Hitler agreed to cease his demands for territory, permitted the annexation of the
Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia): "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has
returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time...Go home and get a nice
2

totalitarian governments of Europe. In June 1936, as part of this policy, the International Exhibitions
Bureau in Paris approved Mussolini’s proposal for Rome’s sponsorship of the 1942 World Exhibition.5
Although many scholars regard E42 as the "triumph" of the Rationalist group of architects, the
complex’s chief architect, the Rationalist Marcelo Piacentini, borrowed many characteristics from other
domestic and continental architectural movements. Piacentini’s style is often identified as a median
between the progressive architecture of the Gruppo 7 and the International Style of Le Corbusier and
Walter Gropius and the traditional, classicized architecture of the Novecento Italiano. The other
rationalist architects involved with the project Giuseppe Pagano, Ettore Rossi, Luigi Piccinato, and Luigi
Vietti brought their region’s heritage and architectural history into the making of E42.6 Although the
extent of their individual involvement on each building’s design remains unclear, scholars note Giuseppe
Pagano and Marcello Piacentini worked closely together on the urban plan and assumed a somewhat
shared role in the project’s overall supervision. Besides the predominant Rationalist influence on the
project, several architects forming part of the peripheral architectural movements of Italian modernism
took part in the planning of E42. Giovanni Muzio, a Novecento Italiano architect, took part in the
deliberation and planning of the complex, imbuing E42’s structures with traditional influences, which
strengthened Piacentini’s direction toward his devised “simplified neoclassicism.” Another architect
involved, Giuseppe Terragni, influenced highly by the International Style of the German Bauhaus
movement, reinforced the progressive quality of E42’s forms. This helped differentiate the overall style
of the buildings from the pure neoclassicism of the Novecento Italiano and characterized E42 as an
amalgamation of traditional and modernist architectural trends. E42 synthesized the major art movements
of Italy into a collective project, which represented Italian culture of the past, present, and the project,
idealistic future.

quiet sleep." Richard Hacken. “Peace for our Time Speech,” accessed 14 April 2012,
http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Neville_Chamberlain's_%22Peace_For_Our_Time%22_speech.
5 Luigi Di Majo, L’EUR e Roma Dagli Anni Trenta al Duemila (Roma-Bari: Editori Laterza, 1986): 18; Trans.
Masha Ciampittiello.
6 “La Nostra Storia,” Area Comunicazione Ufficio Stampa - Eur SpA, accessed 14 April 2012, http://eurspa.it/la-
societa/la-nostra-storia.
3

E42 remains an intricate project, whose symbolism, derived from its urban plan and formal sources,
imbues the whole with social, political, and religious meaning. E42 reinforces Italian religious identity
and the regime’s relationship with the Vatican by including the church SS. Pietro e Paolo and making
various references in its urban plan to the unity of state and religion. Its social implications rely on E42’s
reinforcement of national and regional identity, supported by its grand displays of popular culture and
historical legacy.
In this paper, I discuss the final fascist urban planning project E42 and its legacy to Modern Italian
architecture as a work that adapts aspects of Italian national, regional, and individual identity; that unites
contemporary with historical architectural trends; that honors the accomplishments of Italian history; and
that directs Italy toward the future as a successful modern empire. Despite the political constraints placed
on Italian architecture, architects managed to find innovative solutions and novel forms for representing
Italian fascist rhetoric, producing a great deal of individual variation within the architectural schools
under which they were associated. Through E42, this thesis will explain the effects of political rhetoric
on Italian fascist cultural identity and the active roles individual architects took to direct Italian
modernism toward a mixture between progressive and traditional architectural forms.
4

i.i THE URBAN PLAN
Just as the Emperor Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire looked to Constantine and ancient
Rome for artistic inspiration in the middle ages, Mussolini and the fascist regime assimilated the values
of Augustus Caesar and the early Imperial Roman Empire to justify their rule over early twentieth-
century Italy. In an effort to represent Roman influence, the E42 complex utilizes Roman axial geometry
to create even boundaries and parcel space according to Roman urban planning models, such as imperial
fora (Fig. 1). The complex arranges the buildings themselves in pairs to create focal points on cross axes
[red], whose relative positions devise symbolic dichotomies and comparisons in function and meaning.
Its main longitudinal axis [green] runs from the Olympic Stadium to Piazza Marconi, where a truncated
obelisk stands in tribute to Gugliemo Marconi, a Nobel-prize winning scientist credited with the
invention of the telegraph. The use of the obelisk as a commemorative vehicle recalls the Imperial legacy
of Roman emperors, who brought spolia obelisks to Rome after various expansion expeditions. In
addition to being an ancient Roman practice, obelisks also reference the Papacy and Italy’s cultural ties
with the Vatican. In the Renaissance and Baroque, reigning Popes used obelisks as visual markers to
guide religious pilgrims through Rome’s religious attractions, enhancing the scenic journey toward the
Vatican. Mussolini and the fascist regime understood Church support would help legitimize the empire in
the eyes of the predominately Catholic Italian population. They, therefore, sought to assimilate traditional
Church practices with Fascist indoctrination to ease the popular transition to fascism. Mussolini, for
example, looted an obelisk from Axum during his 1936 annexation campaign in Ethiopia and installed it
at Piazza Porta Capena on the western outskirts of Rome, where it remained until 2005.7
When conceptualizing this new suburban center, the regime understood the importance of
conveying the Church’s authority as part of the grand display of Roman history and civilization. The

7 The Italian government returned the obelisk to Ethiopia in 2005, 60 years following the 1947 treaty for its
repatriation.
Ian Limbach, "Special Report: The Axum Obelisk Returns, but Still Some Grumble," Archaeology: Publication of
Archaeological Institute of America, 4, vol. 58 (1996).
http://www.archaeology.org/0507/etc/specialreport.html (accessed 3 March 1012).